The Best App for Road Trips

I don’t know what the general consensus is on the topic, but I personally think that there are road trip people, and there are NO THANK YOU PLEASE DON’T MAKE ME SIT IN A CAR FOR THAT LONG people.

Christopher and I are the former.

I LOVE road trips! I would sit in a car and explore the country for months on end if it was a viable option for us. I really, really would.

So naturally, when it came time to plan our honeymoon, a road trip was an idea we put on the table.

To be honest, it wasn’t our very first idea, as it’s not really a “traditional” honeymoon and I’m a bit of a traditional lady, so at first we were thinking of tropical locations and whatnot. But then, the more we talked about it, the more we realized that neither of us really care to lounge around in the sun leisurely. We love to adventure.

And so, our honeymoon road trip was born!

We drove from New Hampshire to Florida and back again in 8 days.

Yup.

8 days.

Which meant that some of those days were made up of literally 10-12 hours of driving.

And this, my friends, is where my favorite app of all time came into play…

Roadside America is a website (and an app, which is what we used on our trip!) that points out weird or hilarious or strange or just random roadside attractions all across the United States.

Like the World’s Largest Entertainment McDonalds and a Giant Paint Can and The Big Coffee Pot (all of which we did indeed see on our honeymoon, by the way.)

They’re not all weird either – we went to the Gettysburg Cyclorama, America’s Stonehenge, and the Albacore Submarine because of suggestions from the app, which are all educational/historical locations.

If you are a road trip person you NEED this app in your life immediately.

It is one of the only apps I have on my phone that I paid for and I would do it again, ten times over.

I LOVE THIS THING AND I AM GOING TO TELL YOU WHY.

(For the record, this post is not even a little bit sponsored, I’m just obsessed with the app and it has made so many of our trips a billion times more fun and I want all of you to know about it!)

Here are some of the best things about the Roadside America app…

Search Function

You can search within the app in several ways! You can search by location, search by category, and you can also use your GPS whereabouts to show you what’s nearby! Before our trip, Christopher and I planned a few places we knew we definitely wanted to stop (Hello, Tiny World – a village of houses made for cats!) that we scheduled along the way, but we also had our fair share of “check the GPS and see where we can go nearby!” moments. (Hello, Dinosaur Land!) The search functions make the app super easy to use and navigate and it’s great for both planned and spontaneous adventures!

“Been There” and “Saved” Categories

See a place you know you want to try to find when you travel to a new city? Add it to your “Saved” items so it’s easy to pull it up again once you get to your destination!

Visit the landmark you were searching for? BOOM. Mark it as “Been There” and it’ll automatically add it to a personal list of attractions you’ve visited. (Christopher and I are up to 32, for the record!)

Community Aspect

There are sections that include “tips” from people who have previously visited the locations, which can be SUPER helpful, especially if you’re going somewhere that may be slightly hard to find. When Christopher, Jessica, and I went to find the Tri-State Monument, the tips were VITAL in helping us locate it – it was literally in the back of a cemetery, behind an overpass (I know, very glamourous, right?) and we probably wouldn’t have known to go all the way back to find it if the community tips weren’t there to help us out!

Obviously not all locations have up-to-date tips, since they are user provided, so it’s possible that you might get a tip from 2014 that’s outdated now, but that’s part of the risk you take when you search for these places! The tips do have the date listed, so you’re able to get a good sense of how long ago it was left, but it is possible that the information could’ve changed since the comments were sent in. (And the tips are vetted by Roadside America, by the way, so none of them are just straight-up nonsense!) In my experience, the tips were extremely useful and sometimes super funny, which is just an added bonus!

FUN

Mainly this app is just SUPER FUN, and it’s a weird, exciting, frugal way to explore the country on a long trip. It’s also a great way to add adventure to what could normally be a boring drive – spending HOURS of your time cramped up in a car can be a bit much, but knowing that you’re about to jump out in a few minutes to go explore The Smallest Church in America or an actual house shaped like a shoe definitely makes the trip more exciting!

We have gone on three separate trips (our honeymoon, our trip to Gettysburg to visit Jess’ half-sister Daphne, and Christopher and my #SavageSecondHoneymoon this past summer) where we’ve heavily used the app and it has added a whole new sense of fun and adventure to our time! I highly, highly recommend you check it out!

Hi, I’m Grady! Welcome to my blog 🙂 A little about me? I’m a smitten newlywed and brand-new stepmom living in New Hampshire. My day job is boring on paper but great in real life (just like Dunder Mifflin!), and when I’m not working I love to spend time with my family, perform in or manage productions at the theatre, and eat ice cream while listening to yet another financial management podcast. I write about my marriage, step-parenthood, and whatever else is going on. Be sure to follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, and subscribe to my blog!

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Hi There, I’m Grady!

I'm a wife and stepmama obsessed with dresses, planners, and iced coffees bigger than my head.

I believe that having a happy, healthy stepfamily is not only possible but necessary for stepmom sanity, and I hope to provide a place of support for stepmoms who need to know someone else just
"gets it.”